Global Research Initiative on Open Science establishes its Academic Advisory Board

25/02/2026

GRIOS, the Global Research Initiative on Open Science, is pleased to announce the establishment of its Academic Advisory Board (AAB), following a highly competitive selection process. The newly appointed Board, comprising 11 leading scholars from nine countries across Europe, Africa and the Americas, held its first meeting on 19 February 2026.

The Academic Advisory Board will play a central role in ensuring the scientific quality, relevance, and rigour of GRIOS’s work. The initiative aims to promote more effective Open Science policies by commissioning systematic and scoping reviews of academic literature in diverse languages, synthesising the current knowledge about Open Science practices worldwide.

Global expertise and diverse perspectives

The response to the call for applications, which closed in November 2025, exceeded expectations in both quantity and quality, demonstrating strong international interest in evidence-based Open Science policy development.

The selected AAB members bring expertise spanning metascience, research on Open Science, systematic reviews, research policy, reproducibility and scholarly communication. With affiliations to institutions in France, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Brazil, Canada, the United States, Germany, Ghana, and Mexico, the Board reflects GRIOS’s commitment to inclusive representation and diverse geographic perspectives.

The members of the Academic Advisory Board are:

• Abdelghani Maddi, Research Engineer, GEMASS (CNRS, Sorbonne University)
• Amanda Blatch-Jones, Senior Research Fellow, University of Southampton, Visiting Senior Fellow, Research on Research Institute
• Eduarda Centeno, Executive Director, Brazilian Reproducibility Network
• Emmanuel Boakye, Executive Director, African Reproducibility Network
• Erin McKiernan, Professor, National Autonomous University of Mexico; Dir. Programs & Strategies, Open Research Community Accelerator (ORCA)
• Florian Naudet, Professor, Open Science & meta-science expert, University of Rennes, France
• Julia Priess Buchheit, Researcher and Professor, Kiel University
• Natalie Harrower, Executive Director, Canadian Research Data Centre Network, McMaster University
• Nchangwi Syntia Munung, Senior Lecturer, University of Cape Town
• Neil Jacobs, Associate Director, UK Reproducibility Network, University of Bristol
• Timothy Errington, Senior Director of Research, Center for Open Science

Full biographies are available at https://www.grios.org/academic-advisory-board

First meeting focuses on priorities and planning

The first gathering brought together the Academic Advisory Board and the GRIOS Steering Committee. Following presentations on GRIOS’s objectives and scope, AAB members were presented with findings from a commissioned literature study about Open Science.

Building on this analysis, the Board discussed potential topics for the first systematic reviews to be commissioned by GRIOS, along with methodological considerations and best practices. The AAB established its work plan and timeline for the year ahead.

“This is an important milestone for GRIOS”, commented Florian Naudet, co-founder of GRIOS and Chair of the AAB. “The Academic Advisory Board brings together exceptional scholars whose expertise spans the full breadth of research on Open Science. Our first meeting showed the tremendous potential of this collaboration to deliver the rigorous, evidence-based guidance that Open Science policies need.”

The Academic Advisory Board will now work to deliver its recommendations on priority review topics to the Steering Committee in the coming weeks. The first call for the systematic reviews is expected to be published shortly thereafter.

About GRIOS

The Global Research Initiative on Open Science (GRIOS) is a new initiative that aims to advance Open Science practices and policies by reviewing and synthesizing existing evidence about Open Science and identifying obstacles to its widespread uptake.  GRIOS will enable funders, research organisations, and policymakers to optimise their Open Science strategies for maximum impact and effectiveness. In addition, GRIOS aims to identify knowledge gaps and federate the global research-on-Open Science communities around a common research agenda. GRIOS emerged from G7 work on Research on Research and Open Science.

Multilingual access | Accès multilingue

GRIOS acknowledges that language diversity is important for advancing global open science. In line with our commitment to multilingualism, this press release is also available in French.